


Survival of the Fittest

by CollingwoodGirl



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Exploration, F/M, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Huddling For Warmth, Hypothermia, MFMM Year of Tropes, Phryne being Phryne, Support the Miss Fisher movie, Trentham Falls, Tropes, crowdfunding, skin to skin contact, the skunk coat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-14
Updated: 2017-10-14
Packaged: 2019-01-17 09:50:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12363099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CollingwoodGirl/pseuds/CollingwoodGirl
Summary: Jack and Phryne chase their quarry along the Coliban River. More fluff than casefic.





	Survival of the Fittest

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Script Snippet "We need to get warm"](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/329856) by Fiona Eagger and Deb Cox. 



> Inspired by the film script snippet from the upcoming Miss Fisher movie:  
> “We need to get warm.”  
> “At the South Pole they recommend skin to skin contact…”
> 
> Please support the final hours of the Miss Fisher movie Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign at www.missfisherthemovie.com  
> So much thanks and love to all the lovely people at Every Cloud Productions!

“Jack!”

Phryne searches about the riverbank for something – anything – she could use to reach him. Her mind cycles through all the possibilities regardless of potential availability. A long branch, a vine, a length of rope, a scarf. _A scarf!_

It had been a very thoughtful gift from Dot, who preferred to while away the hours of her bedrest knitting. She must have enjoyed working on this piece – because it is lovely and warm and very, very long. Phryne absently wonders if Mr. Butler’s prescience is rubbing off on her companion.

Unfurling the heavy wool from around her throat, Phryne casts it toward him like a lasso with a cry that sounds more like a command than the desperate wail she feels building in her lungs.

She holds her breath as the knit falls just short of his outstretched fingers. Winding it back up with all the skill of a trophied rodeo rider, she modifies the rescue line by tying a heavy stone to one end - mumbling curses and prayers under her breath with equal fervor.

Even at this distance, despite the spray of the rushing river and the darkening sky, she can see that he is growing tired. That his grip has shifted. There isn’t much of the mossy outcropping to hold on to, and his clothes must be weighing him down as if they were actual armour.

“Be ready now!” she shouts, securing the other end of the scarf to her person. “And for heaven’s sake, don’t catch it with your skull!”

He finds her eyes, and it’s the conviction of his gaze that tells her he is ready.

“On three.” Phryne counts off and lets ‘er rip. The stone hits its mark, to the immediate right of Jack’s wrist. He grabs hold and wraps it around his forearm while she moves downstream to use the water to their advantage. Against every instinct in his body, Jack forces himself to float and not fight as Phryne steers him toward the muddy bank and safety.

She is too thankful for his being alive and whole to ask what on Earth possessed him to follow their murderer into the river – where the towering Trentham Falls were so close, one had to shout to be heard above them. No one could have survived that descent. Fishing the killer’s body out of the water would have to wait until the light of day.

Phryne snaps her head side to side. It is the physical manifestation of forcing away the image her mind conjures – one of Jack’s body lying, cold and blue and mangled, on a steel slab. This one had been close.

He manages to stand but is unsteady as they make their way back to his motor car, parked in a less densely treed bit of scrubland. _Police business, Miss Fisher, means we take the police motor car._ She smiles in spite of the way she can feel him shivering next to her.

“Passenger side,” she states with a tone that allows no room for appeal, as they approach the vehicle. “You’re in no fit state to drive and, anyhow, we’ll get back to town faster if I’m behind the wheel.”

Jack stops several yards short of the car and crouches down, squinting in settling darkness. “Not with a fourty-four caliber hole in the tyre, you won’t.”

Ignoring the chatter of his teeth – though his tone manages to be dry even while the rest of him is soaking to the bone – Phryne smiles triumphantly.

“Don’t worry, Jack. An Italian racecar driver once showed me how to change a flat in less than three minutes time.”

“Miss Fisher—”

“…Which, upon thinking on it, is about as long as he last—”

“Phryne!”

“Sorry,” she quips, with a moue on her lips. “I only mean that it’s no trouble. You’ve got a spare, after all.”

“But I don’t have two.” He points a shaking finger at a similar injury to the front passenger wheel.

“Damn!”

“More or less. If we hiked, we could be there in a couple of hours.”

“In this terrain?” She looks at him squarely as a shiver racks his body. “And that’s if you don’t catch your death of cold first.”

“Phryne, I’m fine.” He reaches for her hand in a gesture that’s meant to engender confidence. His sleeve still dripping with river water, and his skin is cold as ice.

“You’re a terrible liar, Jack Robinson. We need to get warm.”

“And, how do you propose we do that?”

Phryne shrugs. “I’m going to start the engine and you’re going to strip.” How he can be that cold and still worry about propriety is beyond her comprehension. “Don’t look at me like that, Jack. Drape your clothes over the bonnet. With any luck, they’ll be dry before we run out of fuel.”

Reading the hesitation in his eyes, she removes her own coat – a black and white houndstooth with a stripe of silk rebellion down the spine – and gasps as the cold night air seeps beneath the crepe of her blouse. “For your modesty. But don’t you dare put your arms through it,” she warns, offering it to him. “You’ll rip the shoulders from their seams.”

“I suppose that’s a compliment,” he manages, his teeth clicking in a furious jig.

“Take it however you please,” she replies smoothly, “So long as you take those wet things off.” Phryne settles into the driver’s seat and cranks the engine. Thankfully, Jack had ignored her nettling and refueled at the last opportunity. Perhaps they would have enough to last the night. It is an overly optimistic view, but one that she clings to as she ratchets up the poor excuse for a proper car heater.

Suddenly, everything goes dark and, for the slightest of moments, Phryne panics. Until she realizes Jack has strewn her coat across the windscreen – blocking himself from her vantage point. _Damn the man._

He removes his sodden clothing as quickly as he can with fingers too large to properly manage all the buttons – even when they aren’t tremoring with chill. Exposed, his wet skin prickles in the night air as he anchors his effects to the car with rocks found at his feet. Another spasm takes hold of him. The final maneuover is to wrap Phryne’s coat around his middle – which is done as swiftly as possible. He is as grateful for its coverage as he is chagrined by the absurd intimacy of it.

Two knuckles rap urgently on the glass when he finds the passenger door locked. He peers into the car to find Phryne gesturing toward the backseat, and finally feels something besides the cold. Disappointment brews in his abdomen.

They were embarking on… _something_. Neither ready – nor perhaps capable – of defining it. Since her return, they were slowly navigating their way back to one another. Where their hopes married and diverged, they had not yet ascertained. But quiet dinners, whiskys over closed cases, and the occasional peck or lingering touch were all well within the gamut of the familiar, and, therefore, enjoyed.

 _Safer this way_ , he tells himself, as he crawls into the back of his car. His is instantly warmer than he was moments ago, with the metal surround blocking the biting air and breeze, the heater providing a modicum of warmth. Phryne passes him a cup of hot, sweet tea from the thermos and he downs it in one go. He lays back and rearranges Phryne’s coat to cover him like a blanket. He sighs and closes his eyes for the merest of seconds.

“Jack?”

He wakes to find her wedged into the floorboard at his side. One hand is cupping his face, the other, measuring the beat of his heart. Her fingers on his bare chest leave fire in their wake.

“Jack, wake up. Your body temperature is dropping.”

“How long was I out?” he asks, with full knowledge of what a case of hypothermia had spelled for his fellow soldiers.

“Only a moment.” Her smile is soft even as worry pinches the delicate skin around her eyes. Her thumb brushes over his mouth, doing nothing to wipe the bluish tinge from where it is settling. “But I need you to stay here with me, alright? Fair warning… we might have to resort to extreme measures.”

“Such as?”

Phryne begins to unbutton her blouse.

“Miss Fisher—”

“No arguments, Jack. Lean forward.”

He does as he’s told – the sight of her ivory camisole stunning him into silence – and allows her to hang the silk over his shoulders like a cape. It smells of her – of French perfume and gun oil and the musky sweetness of her skin – and it warms him as much as the heat it transfers.

“Better?”

“Better,” he admits huskily. He’d like to blame the hoarseness of his voice on the cold, but knows it wouldn’t fool anyone.

“But not good enough.” She bites her lip – a tiny affectation of uncertainty that brings him undone more than her coyness ever could. “I’ve read Shackleton’s papers.”

“So have I.”

 _Of course he had._ “Then, you're aware,” she begins, shimmying out of her trousers and stockings with such efficiency as to leave no doubt of her intentions. “At the South Pole, they recommend skin to skin contact…”

Jack opens his mouth but cannot find a single reason to protest. And, in an instant, he is surrounded. Her breath is at his ear, her hair tickles at his neck and his hip. Every inch of her presses to every inch of him. The heat of her skin penetrates his body like he’s sunk into a hot bath, and he shudders. The sensation is addictive.

His skin is cooler than Phryne would prefer but his pulse is strong and steady. Jack had jumped at the chance to provide assistance with her latest investigation – an inquiry in Bendigo that started with the theft of timber and ended with murder. The idea of a getaway had been very promising – even as he had insisted on separate rooms. She had hoped to crumble what remained of his resistance.

It had not gone to plan but here they are, alive, alone, with nary a wisp of thread between them. And Jack, growing warmer by the second, is nuzzling his nose into her shoulder. Well, Phryne was never one to let an opportunity go to waste. She shifts against him, eliciting a shudder of a different sort, and a gorgeous little grunt that sends white hot sparks down her spine.

He retracts his hips with obvious effort. “Forgive me,” he groans. Genuine concern blooms in eyes as dark as obsidian.

“Jack,” she whispers, and kisses him as chastely as she can manage with his muscles tensing beneath her. “We left propriety behind some time ago.”

“With your father’s nerve tonic, if I recall.”

Her lips curve against his jaw at the memory. “I prefer you fully-conscious. I want to be with you, Jack. This isn’t how I pictured it, of course. But there’s nothing to forgive.” She draws up on her hands to search his eyes. “Don’t you want to be with me?”

He wraps his arms round her back – how he’s dreamt of her back! – and tugs her coat more firmly around them, trapping the sparks of combustion building between their bodies.

“More than anything.”

Jack doesn’t expect the laugh that bubbles up from her chest and fractures in glittering splinters over his skin. He seizes her face and brings her lips to his for a deep, lingering kiss. 

“You know... there’s something else Shackleton mentions.” His words are sly as he teases them along her collarbones.

“Oh?” Phryne’s voice is high and breathy and full of delight. “What would that be?”

“Mild exercise.”

There is a smile playing hide and seek in the corner of his mouth, and she licks at it to draw it out. “Only _mild_?”

“Overexertion could have the opposite effect. But I promise to embark on the endeavour when I’m up to scratch. In the meantime,” he drawls, following the length of her spine with his fingertips, over her curves, to flutter against her in barely-there strokes, “…I’m sure there must be something I could do to convince you it’s to our mutual benefit.”

“Your survival techniques, Inspector,” she trilled, “Are second to none.”

**Author's Note:**

> My first fic in an age. I've missed you all so much! Hope you enjoyed the read and I look forward to seeing you for this year's Phryne Ficathon! XOXO CG
> 
> Sir Ernest Shackleton (who both detectives make reference to) was a polar explorer and adventurer who led three British expeditions to the Antarctic between 1901 and 1917.


End file.
